Mechanical devices for vending newspapers are principally divided into two categories, namely coin-operated vendors which combine a system for displaying a newspaper, and storing a stock of copies with a system for accepting payment and controlling access to the stock in relation to receipt of payment, and point of sale displays which have the displaying and storing system, but not the payment acceptance and access-controlling system. Mechanical devices of the point of sale type often are used in magazine/newspaper vending stalls or areas in hotel lobbies, airport terminals, coffee shops and similar locations. The present invention principally relates to devices in the latter category.
The term "point of sale" is used loosely herein, to cover not only instances where a potential reader will pick up a newspaper and pay for it at an adjacent check-out register, sales counter, honor-system coin-box or the like, but also instances in which a hotel, airline or the like has bought a supply of copies of the newspaper in bulk and distributes them on a self-service basis or by means of an hospitality-giver who stands by the display and hands copies to passing guests, patrons, ticketholders and the like, without payment being expected from the recipients. Similarly, the term "self-service display" is used loosely herein to denote the same type of mechanical device, regardless of whether the environmental set-up is such that the potential reader actually takes the newspaper from the device himself or herself, or has it handed to him or to her by someone else, such as a hospitality-giver who has taken it from the device. And likewise, the term vendor is used without regard to whether payment is made by or expected of the persons who received individual copies of the newspaper from the device.
The newspaper USA TODAY is vended from a now-familar and distinctive coin-operated vendor which has a pedestal-mounted box with a round-cornered wrapper and a front panel assembly which both displays the front page of an issue of the paper behind a transparent panel of an access-controlled door, and a coin-accepting mechanism which controls access to the door. The distinctiveness of the coin-operated USA TODAY newspaper rack is enhanced by a distinctive color scheme and logography for the box. Examples of the appearance of the coin-operated USA TODAY newspaper rack are shown in the U.S. Pat. No. Des. 273,123 to Gore, issued Mar. 10, 1984 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,544,081, to Voegeli issued Oct. 1, 1985, and in the copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 921,464 to Nichols, filed Oct. 22, 1986. The first-mentioned patent shows the basic design, the second relates to some mechanical arrangements, e.g. in the mechanical construction of the box body and front panel assembly, and the copending application relates to a version in which the box body is made in one piece out of molded plastic material.